The last thing any busy lawyer wants to add to their already overflowing plate is business development.

Scratch that.

The last thing any busy lawyer wants is the pressure to come up with a ‘winning’ new idea for business development and then to work on implementing that idea on an urgent basis.

Here’s the problem. While you may be too busy to think about marketing today, you may not be headed for quite the same level of activity in the foreseeable future.

So, avoid setting yourself up to have to figure it all out while you’ve got your hands full with billable work. Build a system. A turnkey business development system that moves along at a steady pace, busy or not. That way, you’re always doing something to feed the pipeline.

Never too much. Never too little.

If you take the time to consider your business development system and build it strategically, you won’t need to come up with fresh, strategic ideas when your attention is, rightfully, placed elsewhere. You will already know what you (and others at your firm) are supposed to do, when and why.

And even better, when you finally do get some downtime, you won’t have to throw yourself into marketing just to get caught up. You will actually be able to enjoy your well-deserved break… guilt free!

—

For more reading on business development, see these past articles on Slaw: